


Blind Faith

by The_Muse



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Brief mentions of Diana Meade, Brief mentions of Lily Bard, Desert Wolfs name is Holly, F/F, F/M, M/M, Malia Tate is not Peter Hale's Daughter, Murder Mystery, Past Rape/Non-con, some mentions of PTSD, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:40:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Muse/pseuds/The_Muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting over seemed to have been working quite well in Beacon Hills until the body of Heather Ross is discovered in her family's home by their home cleaner. Malia doesn't care for mysteries or the police but after finding the presumed murdered teenager she finds herself thrown head first into both. Whoever said starting over was easy was full of crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And So It Goes

 

Small marks hardly discernable on lightly golden tanned forearms, Malia took great care in pulling the sleeves of her blouse down and buttoned at the wrist as she hastily took her orders. 

The man who might have noticed the tiny hardly there scars said not a word about them and turned his attention to the menu in his hand while rubbing his corse beard with the other, considering his options.

He asks for dessert before supper and Malia obliges with a smile and a promise to be back quickly before making a hasty retreat. If the man is a private detective sent by her mother she might scream. 

No, she thinks, as he deliberately looks her way and grins, his watery blue eyes glimmering from behind round rimmles glasses, yes he must be here not to merely investigate like the others but to perhaps escort her to her parents.

She ducks into the back office and gives her boss her rather poorly executed I quit speech. He sits behind his old desk with its mountains of paperwork and glowers at her with his blazing black eyes, combs his hand, artificial and still the coolest thing she's ever seen, through his chestnut hair and sighs. 

"Another one? No of course it is." He waves her off dismissively and goes back to his papers. "Where you fittin' to go this time?"

Malia goes straight for his rickety locker and pulls our an old Nike sports bag and fishes for her keys inside. 

Everyday she brings what she'll need if she's got to hit the road and, saddened to the point of near tears she actually hugs Saul from behind, loving his powerful shoulders and the general warmth and feel of him against her. 

If she weren't so damaged, if Saul saw her as anything other than the girl he'd found in the alley to the side of his diner drenched in rain a year ago then maybe she would have had him, the fifteen year gap be damned!

"I'll let you know when I get there."

"If you mange to give them the slip you know you're always welcomed back."

It's as close to a goodbye she's ever gonna get from Saul Giovanni and she nods and promises she'll be back as soon as possible as she leaves towards the back door into the filthy alleyway like a thief in the night.

* * *

 

Her piece of junk Chevy truck is older than she is, was bought dirt cheap from a retired sheriff up in some nowhere town in Seattle. It's red, matches with the rust stains and works so well, apart from the horrendous chuga chuga noise as it barrels down the road, that it feels almost new. 

She loves it, especially after she'd found the tracker in her Toyota Camry she'd had to ditch when she'd first left Louisiana. 

Her truck has been home more than any other place had been for a while.

The old trapper keeper with a journal inside had somewhat solidified this love for her truck when she'd found it beneath her seat, dropped and forgotten years before Mister Swan had sold the truck.

The girl who'd previously owned it muat have had such an imagination. Vampire werewolf love triangles? True love? So some of it could be called cliche, but the girl had been good at writing twisted love.

Malia wondered about that girl and her larger than life imagination. She wondered if she'd gotten a chance to publish anything yet and decided to keep an eye out on the chance that she did.

Malia pulls into a rest stop beside an old RV. She cranks opened the drivers side window an inch and settles down for a power nap. 

Malia wonders about the man her family sent after her, wonders how angry he might have been when she'd ditched him and disappeared. Saul hadn't called her new number, she thought sadly as she thumbed at the old flip phone to set an alarm. 

But Saul wasn't stupid and neither was Malia, who knew that maybe Saul was being watched too. She felt like some sort of criminal because her life now consisted of running and laying low, of using aliases to get by undetected. 

If it weren't for what happened to her when she was eighteen then this wouldn't be happening. Her mother wouldn't try to bring her back home kicking and screaming against her will in the hopes of making Malia the Malia she'd last known eight years prior-

Well Malia can't blame her mother for it. After the kidnapping of her twin daughters and Malia being the one to make it out _alive_...

Malia doesn't have to try to differentiate herself from Diana that much, the long pale scar running from her hair line curving toward her ear dispells any illusions of Diana. 

Sometimes when it all gets to be too much and all she can do is remember those horrible men, the stinking twin beds they'd been thrown on and the horrible things that happened there, Malia is sometimes glad that Diana died early on during the long six months of their abduction. 

At least she hadn't been the one beaten, scared and abused four months in when those men decided that no amount of sweet talk was going to get Malia to willingly given herself to them.

Thank God she thinks, that Diana suffered from a bad heart since they were born and that early on she died. She thanks God fo ventricular fibrillation and the fact that Diana could be in peace. 

Even if both sisters made it out alive neither would ever be the same. Malia used to be a chipper person, used to be trusting and chatty and beautiful just like Diana.

Diana who'd been so terrified that her heart stopped beating, though she'd been terrified of what was happening at least she died as who she was, a beautiful, intelligent young woman who would never know what real and true soul crushing evil was.

Malia tucks her flip phone into her bra and leans against the car door. Her eyes slip shut and she allows herself to sleep. Pain momentarily forgotten.

* * *

Malia is in a small town in Arkansas when Saul calls her. The man was sent by her parents, he tells her and in the same sighing voice that she ought to at least call them if she wasn't interested in going home.

She runs into a familiar looking woman coming out the grocery store with cleaning supplies and a pressed polo shirt. The face was from the news, years before Malia and Diana's abduction she remembers the woman's face. _Bard_ something.

Another lonely traveler, she thinks as the woman spots her with a spark of recognition in her blue eyes, must have seen Malia and Diana on the news too, and nods.

She stays in Shakespeare Arkansas for a month before she decides to move on, the few jobs she'd taken had significantly lined her pockets. 

She deduces that the best way to make quick cash without having to fake it with customers who make her insides twist and churn with anxiety and a low level terror of accidentally miscounting change is housecleaning.

She remembers Oliva, the young woman who came in three times a week to clean the house, remembers how hard she worked two hours on those three days unaware or uncaring of her audience consisting of two over curious children and an employer who couldn't be bothered for chit chat.

Thinking about it now and getting past the small bit of shame at considering it, Malia decides that this is the best course of action. She decides to head east after finding a small town in California that had nearly not made it on the maps.

"Beacon Hills... " Malia mumbles as her truck rumbles it's way down the lone desolate road out of Shakespeare, burst of wind sending her long hair flying from the opened Windows. "Sounds boring."

* * *

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The alarm goes off on Malia's tiny flip phone on the bedside table and with a groan from beneath too many thick multicolored quilts a hand extends and reaches for it. 

A moment later Malia emerges from the warm nest, stares down with one tired eye screwed shut, at the tiny screen and on somewhat wobbly legs she makes her way out of bed. 

It's nearly six thirty in the morning, the sun has already risen, shining brightly in pale golden streams through the slats of the shades of Malia's bedroom window.

Her knees colide, yet again, with the chest at the foot of her bed and Malia curses fiercely, apologizes towards the ceiling, and makes her way into her tiny bathroom. 

The water in her shower takes its usual three minutes to warm up as always while Malia undresses. She tosses her night clothes and panties into the hamper that is already overflowing that sits across the toilet.

What a mess for someone who cleans houses for a living! 

Malia snorts as she steps into her clawfoot tub, pulls the curtains closed and sighs into the steady stream of hot water. One of the reasons she'd chosen this house was for the tub, she'd always wanted one, her house was small but it was hers.

It was older and would need upgrades and repairs but otherwise had _good bones_ and was decently priced, she heard from her neighbor who'd lived in the neighborhood since the construction of the house and mentioned how lucky Malia was for snatching up the property before anyone else could. 

Malia isn't much for company these days but little old Mrs. Merryweather was always welcoming and understanding of Malia's various moods, keeping a steady distance when Malia was feeling badly and politely silent though Malia could almost see the questions bubbling up.

It takes her five minutes to shower, so much quicker now that she'd cut her hair chin length, and steps out into cold air. Malia dries her hair and body with a somewhat clean towel, pulls on her robe and walks out of her bathroom through another door that opens directly into the narrow hallway leading toward her open concept living room/kitchen/dinning room. 

She smells ready made coffee and drools at the thought of day old jelly doughnuts. Malia quickly pours herself a large mugful of coffee, snags the box of Nettie's Pastries and sits on her small loveseat, the sun's rays glimmering through the large window behind her. 

It's days like today that make cleaning other people's messes worth it, she muses as she takes a deliberately messy bite. Malia has been living in Beacon Hills going on nine months and can't picture herself anywhere else though it'd taken her nearly eight months to piece together enough furniture from thrift stores and garage sales to make the tiny house she rents feel like home.

She'd gotten over the initial shame after advertising her services in the local paper after her first client had been a newly wedded couple her age, successful and pleasantly normal. 

Malia knew that she wasn't exactly normal anymore and the anonymity of housecleaning highly outweighed any embarrassment after receiving her first check after an hour of cleaning and being ignored.

The stigma of housecleaning was completely erased, Malia knew that she was not lazy the way anyone would have assumed, and she certainly wasn't strapped for cash, having the sense of mind to save as much as she could and not be so frivolous. She'd learned to budget.

Malia, before the incident in her early twenties would have turned up her nose, would have spent more than her budget could afford her, would have gone crying to her parents when she was too broke to deal. 

Diana had been the responsible twin, she would have never scoffed at Malia's choice of employment.

It's a bitter pill to swallow knowing that Diana would be proud of her maturity if she weren't dead. That Malia had grown up so forcefully because of the horrible things that happened that caused it. That their mother tried to pretend that it never happened their father became more detached and had been unable to look at Malia without staring at her scar.

She looks at the small digital clock on the side table and decides to leave her current stream of thoughts for another day. She downs the rest of her coffee, leaving the box of pastries on the loveseat to finish getting ready. Its when she sees and hears them that Malia stops moving all together.

Shooting down the street came two police squad cars, lights and sirens blaring as they disturbed the otherwise quiet peace of the morning. She sees Mrs. Merryweather come down the steps of her tiny porch, gardening gloves in hand, floppy hat on her head. 

Across the street the Summer's sisters pause at their opened garage, the older blonde sister has her hands on the mower while the other sister fixes her dark hair. Both stare in the direction the squad cars have gone, worriedly.

And just like that Malia feels like the peace of her tiny house shift with the fading sounds of sirens.

* * *

Jimmy Novak opens the front door distractedly and wearing his coffee on his pressed white shirt and blue tie. Malia can't be annoyed by Jimmy, who pays well and has always been one of her truthfully nicer clients despite sometimes being a complete walking disaster.

As always he hollers for his thirteen year old daughter Claire to get a move on and as the girl emerges from the kitchen with entirely too much back on for the obvious benefit to rile her father gives a snort of derision.

She stalks passed her annoyed father, nearly knocking Malia over as she leaves the house. Malia wonders if it's some sort of right of passage for all teenagers to wear dark clothes, too much eyeliner and hate their parents.

This typical teenager makes her feel old and weary deep down of the impending _30_ that draws ever so near. Two in a half years will pass too quickly.

Malia has her routines and knows that Jimmy will be too busy agonizing over what tie to wear (he'll choose another blue) and probably spend a weird amount of time on his hair (the amount of products on his bathroom counter for his hair alone much cost a fortune) while loudly wondering why he'd missed his alarm, again.

So as all of things go on upstairs Malia begins her day with the kitchen. Claire doesn't use the chore wheel her father left pinned to the fridge and because father, like daughter is equally as stuborn, he won't clean up in Claire's steed, determined that she will eventually get to it.

Malia reminds herself that the money is good as she scrubs day old crust from pots and pans before she loads the washer.

Jimmy's ex wife is much less messy and scolds Claire for her laziness, at least, and while it was odd for a while, Malia convinced that the former Mrs. Novak had hired her just to get dirt on her ex, she'd gotten used to seeing the way both loved. 

Amelia kept a tidy house but needed help with lawn work and occasionally dusting as she was unable to reach high shelves from her wheelchair. The woman was kind, saw Malia twice a week and never used a bad word against her ex-husband. 

With the washer loaded Malia begins on the counters, starts thinking about her next gig and wonders if she's saved enough time in the day to go grocery shopping. Beacon Hills only grocery store is insufferably crowded during the day but at night, the silence along the aisles, the echoing of rubber shoes along the linoleum sets her on edge. She hates shopping at night.

She hears Jimmy jog down the stairs. He's on the phone and Malia wonders if he remembers that he's already late to work. She nearly reminds him before she remembers that it's not her job to be his sheduler. 

He ambles into the kitchen and goes straight for the coffee maker and makes quick work with filling a mug. Snagging a cold wrapped sandwich from the fridge with a nod to Malia, Jimmy heads for the livingroom. 

Malia hears the television click on and the familiar voice of anchor woman Rebecca Sumpter chimes through from the living room into the kitchen, reminding Malia of her next appointment.

Rebecca works odd hours, is often forgetful and has an uncanny ability for making a terrible mess in the short time that she is home from work which is why Malia goes three times a week to clean for her. 

Malia isn't looking forward to working on Rebecca's apartment but the money is good enough to make her forget about the mountains of dishes and clothes she'll have to sort through. Like Jimmy, Rebecca is also completely unable to do the minimum of clean up.

Unlike Jimmy, Rebecca does nothing out of pure laziness while Jimmy is completely incapable of accidentally tripping over his own feet and is constantly fighting with his teenage daughter.

The weather will be sunny and breezy. The Metz loose again. Alana Horowitz was caught stealing donations from St. Agnes. Heather Ross, local teenager from Beacon Prep has gone missing.

Malia ties off the trash bag, pauses as the familiar name name comes up again. Heather Ross is sixteen, an honor student and cheerleader. Malia doesn't know her personally or rather she knows of her life the way any hour cleaner can from minutes of picking up her room.

The blonde teen had only a few very close friends, a hobby in photography and a hatred for reality television. Heather didn't particularly enjoy the fact that Malia came to clean for her family but wasn't ever rude.

Heather had gone missing after leaving a friends house. Her Jeep had been found, abandoned in the parking lot of Beacon Hills only strip mall just as mile away from her friends place. Her belongings had not been stolen, just Heather.

Malia doesn't think about the missing teenager for the rest of the day. 


	3. Chapter 3

Markie Parker is a messy woman who pays better than most of Malia's clients and never lingers around after Malia let's herself in through the back door.

As per her Monday ritual the energetic fourty something buzzes past Malia in her brightly colored jogging shorts and lime green top with a hello, a frizzy halo of blonde hair is all Malia sees when she  glances back to shut the door.

Because Markie Parker is such a neurotic mess Malia doesn't need to think about her last client of the day, doesn't imagine that Amanda Ross would pick up the phone anyway with Heather missing...

Malia viciously attacks the refrigerator and doesn't have time to think about the missing girl and the horrible things that might have happened or still may be happening to her.

Markie's tiny rental had never looked so clean by the time eleven thirty rolls around and as Malia plucks her check from the beneath the TV guide left on the kitchen counter she is determined to not think about Heather.

Her next appointment isn't for another hour so Malia drives home to rest. She isn't looking forward to cleaning Rebecca Sumpter's apartment so Malia decides to unwind a bit.

She pulls into her small driveway, waves at the blonde across the street and jogs up the steps to her front door. Everything is as she left it and Malia makes quick work of making herself lunch and polishing off the rest of the pot of coffee.

She thinks that she might get a cat. Her house is quiet, mostly peaceful but sometimes she misses the company.

She picks up around her own house, lightly dusting and ignoring the feeling of dread creeping up on her. Heather's disappearance had left no clues to what might have happened to her.

A car abandoned in an empty lot, door probably left wide opened, her belongings neatly placed on the passenger seat or in the backseat. If the news was to be believed, Heather had been the only thing missing from the scene. Bizarrely left untouched by whomever had stolen her.

She wonders if the news report about her and Diana's own abduction had sounded similar. Local sister's disappearance. Bikes found untouched in bike rack. _Mystery_...

"Damnit!" Malia's grabs her keys and runs out of the house, already five minutes late. 

* * *

"But I can't find it in me to be angry about it. You're usually on time and you always do a good job." Rebecca fluffs her bottle blonde hair and arches a pencil thin eyebrow over her compact, blue eyes glimmering with mirth. "It's to be expected though, all that traffic. It's too bad that you aren't closer."

It goes in one ear and out the other as Malia walks straight to the bedroom. Rebecca pays more than Malia's other clients simply because she's the messiest and had asked for a laundry's list of extra chores that needed to be done.

So Malia gets the laundry together, makes a mental note to do her own and takes her load into the laundry room down the hall, mantra ringing, telling herself that spiting into the green sludge in the refrigerator that Rebecca has with every meal would be _wrong_.

...she's already done that once...she doubts karma will forgive her a second time!

* * *

 Mrs. Ross allows Malia inside apologizing for her state of dress, wearing her pajamas and without a stitch of make up, but Malia waves her off and puts on her best smile.

She thinks, with great sympathy and condolences, that the Ross's are all living in obvious states of terror of the possibility that one of their own was never coming home.

Malia makes coffee, cleans the kitchen and dusts various surfaces without a peep as the Ross's gather silently in the livingroom. Henry Ross, the older brother Malia had never met, looked weather worn and exhausted with grief as he stood silently against the doorframe leading into his father's study while Jimmy and Roxanna, the middle school aged twins peered anxiously from their parents to the phone on the oak coffee table.

Life in this house had stopped, Malia thought and with vigor she made her way to the upstairs bedrooms, "Not Heather's room." The distraught mother said and Malia replied "Of course."

To see a kidnapping from this perspective was a rude awakening, the family held hostage by tragedy and fear and made Malia think of her parents and cousins who must have anxiously waited for news about their girls, devastated when days passed into weeks turing into months.

The likelihood that Heather was alive grew dimmer with each passing second and eventually the Ross's would have no choice but return to their normal lives that will never be normal again.

She wonders how it must feel to know that your baby might very well be dead, she wonders if they'd notified the rest of the family to come to the house blindly seeking their support and encouragement in this dire time.

Diana had been wrapped in a plastic tarp and burried in a shallow grave, Malia hadn't been allowed to see where her sister's body had been taken and it had taken search and rescue a week to find her.

Heather's room is shut, Malia doesn't do much as give the pink painted door a glance. The bathroom is filthy, the children's rooms are a clustered mess. She cleans quickly, goes back downstairs and makes the family sandwiches at Henry's request.

"Mom won't eat and dad..." She doesn't let him finish and after the sandwiches are made she plucks her check from the tray used for keys by the front door and leaves. She doubts they know she's gone.

* * *

 

She calls Saul and gives him an update on her life but leaves out the part about Heather and the Ross's. Saul is a safe place, she can pretend to be normal with him and if he realizes that something's wrong he doesn't ask about it.

* * *

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks. It takes two weeks for the body to be found and because she has all the luck in the world it's Malia who finds the twisted and mangled body of Heather Ross.

"So," Detective Winchester's handsome lightly freckled face comes into view. "you wanna tell me what happened?"

His face is a familiar one, often having seen him in the mornings at The Brew, who ordered coffee nearly as bitter as Malia, who grins and nods every time he sees her.

It's surreal to see him so serious.

"Yeah. Yes, I'll tell you everything."

"You can take a minute if you need it."

No. Malia will not take a minute to process. The quicker she gets her statement over with the quicker Malia can get to her next client.

* * *

Earlier 

Malia wakes up to the sound of her alarm and goes through the motions of her morning routine. It's not different than any other day, there's no reason to think any differently.

Delores Perez and her tiny apartment is still in its regular disarray and like always Malia wonders if the three in a half hour's worth of hard work has made an ounce of difference.

From Delores house Malia makes her way two blocks south to Amelia Novak's small condo, says her hello's and gets to work.

Wednesday is usually her easiest day with just two houses but this Wednesday, which felt no different than any other, turns strange with a text.

It's from Amanda Ross asking Malia if she wouldn't mind terribly coming in the afternoon despite having just been there the day before. Because Malia needs the extra money she texts back an affirmative and waits for Amelia to hand her a list of groceries that she absolutely needs.

It's not unusual for some clients to call and request extra days, though it doesn't happen often in the face of extra charges. 

Like every Wednesday at Blevins Supermart, Malia makes her purchases for Amelia Novak, wonders for the umpteenth time if she has time to stop by The Brew Café for espresso and a pastry before deciding that , ultimately, she doesn't have the time.

In retrospect, Malia will regret not making the time to stop off for lunch and a chat with Craig, the gruff owner of the Brew who lovingly chastised Malia everytime she came in with her ravenous appetite for parfaits.

* * *

 

Malia knows that something is wrong the moment she opens the basement door, met with a suspiciously familiar scent of rotted fruit warmly drifting from the opened door. She ignores the scent and pushes forward with a load of dirty laundry, grows increasingly uneasy the further she makes her way into the darkly lit basement.

 It says something, that Malia doesn't scream or cry as she sees the discolored legs poking out from between the washer and dryer, partly covered in a thin sheet, putrid as she nears it.

* * *

 "And you saw nothing else?" Detective Winchester jots everything down, the tick in his jaw flexing in the light. "When was the last time you were in there?"

"Before finding her? Two weeks ago. I mean, I don't usually do the laundry for them."

"You don't?"

Malia shakes her head, feels nausea suddenly at the implications. Malia charges an extra fee for extra days, extra for certain chores she's given. Laundry, for a larger household at least, is an extra charge that none of her clients ask for unless there is no other alternative. 

The Ross's never ask. Malia has only ever gone into the basement to grab cleaning supplies.

She explains this to Detective Winchester, his brows crease as the rest of his face settles. Detective Winchester, like Malia, have seemed to come to the same damning conclusion and neither of them like it.


End file.
